The Long Wait
by Yankee01754
Summary: Jess, wounded in the leg, waits for help to arrive as he tries to help a seriously wounded stage line executive. Some missing scenes, and a slightly expanded tag, for the episode The Renegade Brand. Hopefully I've corrected all the typos at this point. This is the third time I've posted it.


The Long Wait

By Yankee 01754

Time seemed to stand still for Jess Harper. His left leg ached and was still bleeding despite the bandanna he had tied around the bullet wound.

He'd been in the barn, saddling a fresh horse for Mr. Frazier of the stage line, when the sound of gunfire brought him running out of there in a hurry only to take a bullet from a man hiding behind the house. Hurt, and knocked off his feet, Jess lost his grip on his pistol which flew into the air and landed in the dirt several feet behind him. Grimacing in pain, he had dragged himself to where his gun lay. He exchanged shots with his assailant and two other men who had come running out of the house. The apparent leader carried a mailbag filled with money belonging to the stage line.

The three men made their escape riding hard out of the yard and up the slope. Frustrated, and worried, Jess managed to get to his feet and staggered to the kitchen door. Every step was agony and he nearly fell several times. A foot or so from the kitchen door, his wounded leg started to give out on him again and he would have fallen if not for the small tree shading the doorway. Only his innate stubbornness kept him from giving in.

Inside the house it was quiet. Too quiet. His awareness heightened, Jess made it into the main room of the house and found Mr. Frazier lying on the floor, blood streaming from a chest wound.

"No. Not Mr. Frazier." Jess was distraught. For all the joking around between them, and Frazier's "snapping" orders and complaints, the ex-gunfighter was quite fond of the man. There was always a lot of give and take - wisecracks and complaints - when this particular stage line executive came by to check the books.

Jess stumbled over to the wounded man and sat down beside him. Hastily he untied the bandanna he wore around his neck and used it to try and stem the bleeding from his own wound. Taking his handkerchief from his pocket, Jess folded it with shaky hands, and used it as a compress to try and stem the flow of blood from Mr. Frazier's wound. It wasn't doing any good. Jess was scared. Frazier needed a doctor and, even if he hadn't been wounded himself, Jess couldn't leave him. Slim was in town, working for Mort Corey. Daisy and Mike had gone in for supplies. Jess was alone with a badly wounded man and it scared him.

"I think you and Jess work for Sheriff Corey just to get out of chores at home," Daisy teased her eldest "son".

"What? Me get out of work? Whatever gives you that idea?" Slim joked.

"Never mind. I have a long list of things for you to do - starting with bringing the supplies in," Daisy said as Slim helped her down from the wagon.

Daisy went inside., Slim started to unload by grabbing a box of groceries. Mike delayed him even further when he announced that, when he grew up, he was going to be a lawman.

The kitchen door opened just then and Daisy stood in the doorway shouting "Slim, come quick" in a tone of voice that told Slim something was seriously wrong.

Inside he found an ashen faced Jess sitting on the floor next to Mr. Frazier who was obviously badly hurt. Daisy knelt beside him.

"He's bleeding awful bad. You better keep pressure on it."

"You're hurt yourself," Daisy reminded him.

"I'll be all right. "

Slim came up behind Jess and laid a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and let him know that he was there for him.

"What happened pard?"

"About twenty minutes ago. Three men robbed Mr. Frazier."

Daisy spoke up.

"He needs a doctor, badly."

"Doc Phillips is at the Bates ranch. Mike can fetch him. We've got to get on the trail."

Jess started to rise but his wounded leg gave out on him and he nearly fell to the floor,

"You're not able to ride," Slim told him.

"I can try."

Jess tried to get up and walk but would have fallen had Slim not been right there. He got Jess around the waist and sat him - firmly - in the chair that sat in front of the desk.

"All right. You tried. Did you see 'em leave?"

Jess told him the direction as Slim tied his holster down and pinned the badge that Mike handed him to his shirt. Then he went out the door in pursuit of the thieves. That was the last they would see of him for a while.

"Mike," Daisy drew the boy's attention back to the situation at hand. "Go get your pony and ride to the Bates' for Doc Phillips. Quickly now. Tell him we've got two wounded men here."

The boy ran out through the kitchen door to the barn and quickly saddled his pony. Then he headed for the Bates ranch where he caught the doctor just as he was leaving.

"Doc Phillips! Doc Phillips! Wait!" Mike's boyish soprano rang out loud and clear.

"Mike Williams! What's the matter boy?" the medical man asked.

"We need you at the relay station!"

"Why? Somebody sick?"

"No sir. Jess and Mr. Frazier, from the stage line, are hurt. Aunt Daisy says Mr. Frazier needs a doctor real bad!"

"What happened?"

"Jess says some men robbed Mr. Frazier and shot him. Jess is hurt, too. He got shot in the leg."

"Did Mrs. Cooper say how bad Jess is?"

"No sir. He was going to ride with Slim - to chase the thieves - but he couldn't stand. He started to fall but Slim caught him and put him in the chair at his desk."

By now the doctor had reached his buggy and had a pretty good idea of what he was facing. If Daisy Cooper didn't think she could handle the older man's injury by herself then it was cause for concern. Daisy was as good as, and better than some, doctors when it came to tending to her boys and their neighbors.

"You start for home, Mike, and tell Mrs. Cooper I'll be there as soon as I can. Tell her to keep pressure on that wound Frazier's got and to keep Jess off his feet if she can."

"Yes sir!" Mike turned his pony's head and raced for home with the news that the doctor would be there soon.

An hour later, due to having to keep to the roads, Doctor Phillips arrived at the Sherman Ranch and Relay Station. The situation was, indeed, grave. Frazier lay on the floor in the main room bleeding heavily from a chest wound. Jess Harper, looking pale and in pain, sat in the chair at Slim's desk.

The doctor lost no time in issuing orders. Mike was only ten but he'd seen his parents killed when he was but nine-years-old. He'd been living with Slim, and Jess, long enough to have learned to keep his head in an emergency.

"Mike, stoke up the fire in the stove and put a kettle of water on to boil. Then clear the table and put one of Mrs. Cooper's clean sheets on it."

"Gordon Bates will be along with his wagon in a while. Provided Frazier survives he'll need around the clock attention and a quiet room of his own - something you folks can't supply what with space limitations and the stages in and out all day." Phillips added, "He sent one of his men into town with a message for the stage line and Mort Corey."

The boy scrambled to do as he was told. When those tasks were completed the doctor had him find some old sheets that could be torn into strips to use for bandages. Daisy told him where to find them and had the boy give them to Jess who needed something to occupy him.

Between them, Doc Phillips and Daisy Cooper somehow managed to get Frazier onto the table with a little help from Mike who held the compress on the wound. Jess started to get up to help but was told "get back in that chair and don't budge from it" by the doctor.

It was a grueling two hours but doctor and nurse managed to stop the bleeding and have Walt Frazier ready to travel - albeit at a very slow pace. By the time they were done Sheriff Corey had arrived. Mort helped Doc Phillips put a protesting Jess under while he removed the bullet from the younger man's leg. Then he helped carry Jess into his room and put him in his own bed. Daisy would take over from there.

Blessedly, Daisy noted, Jess did not suffer any ill effects from the chloroform. She knew he'd have a headache, and maybe some nausea, when he came around again and was ready with some herbal teas to help diminish the symptoms. Neither did he run a high fever. His leg ached for days but as long as he obeyed orders about staying off his feet he was fine.

For the next few days, Jess fretted over Slim's absence. They hadn't had any word from him since he left and the younger partner worried that his pard was in serious trouble. Daisy did her best to reassure him that "no news is good news" but the concerned look she wore on her face didn't fool Jess one bit. She was as worried as he was and having an invalid on her hands didn't help.

When Slim finally came home, it was with the news that the men who had robbed Mr. Frazier and shot both him and Jess, were either in jail or dead. He never told Mike the whole story of the mother who had contributed to her son becoming a thief and a killer by never disciplining him after the death of his father, but they did tell him enough so he would understand why his puppy's mother wouldn't miss him after he was gone.

"This is the one I'm going to give Mr. Frazier," the boy said taking a puppy from the box on the floor in front of them. "Think he'll like him?"

"I'm sure he will," Daisy told the youngster.

"Sure, now that Mr. Frazier's feeling better, he'll need some good company," Jess said.

"Think his mom will miss him?":

"No, I don't think so, Tiger," Slim answered. "Times animals are a lot smarter than people.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, people sometime try to hang on things too hard. Love somebody else so much that, well, it actually smothers the person they really care about."

"I don't see how love could smother anybody," Mike said.

"Well, it doesn't usually. But while I was away, I saw it happen to a family. A mother did it to her son."

Mike looked at his family with big innocent eyes.,

"Do you think that could happen to me? I mean, getting smothered."

Jess smiled. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Tiger. When you're ready, you're going to be pushed out of the nest so fast, you won't know what happened."

"Yeah, and the way you're growing, that's gonna be sooner than you realize," Slim added with a grin of his own.

Daisy scolded her two oldest.

"Now, you hush, both of you. He's just a little boy."

Mike looked at Daisy and said, "Oh, that's okay, Aunt Daisy. I'm not worried. I figure by the time I'm grown up, I'll have to stay around here to take care of Slim and Jess in their old age."

The look on Mike's face said he knew he was insulting his beloved brothers but didn't care. He had to give them a hard time the way they gave each other - and him - a hard time.

Daisy giggled briefly but stopped herself. Slim and Jess exchanged looks.

"Are we gonna take that, pardner?" he asked Jess with a look that spelled mischief.

"Well, I don't know. You reckon we can both handle him? Get him, Slim!"

Mike got up in a hurry and managed, briefly to avoid Slim's reach by putting a chair between them, which promptly wound up on its side on the floor. He couldn't avoid Jess though. The darked haired cowboy caught the boy around the waist while his partner grabbed his legs. The tickle torture was on as Daisy tried to get them to listen.

Mike's "punishment" went on for a good five minutes before all three of them stopped, having run out of breath. Daisy scolded, for all the good it did her, and told them to straighten up the room or they'd have to fend for themselves at dinner. That was warning enough. The two men stopped tickling Mike and quickly set the main room to rights again by straightening the rugs and righting the furniture while Mike took his box of puppies back out to the barn. Nobody wanted to "fend for themselves" for dinner - not when Daisy was there to take care of them. "Never mess with the cook" Jess and Slim warned Mike.


End file.
